Parenting Help

According the Center for Generational Kinetics here are the main trends that influence how a generation is shaped.

“The three key trends that shape generations are parenting, technology and economics. For example, many Baby Boomers have the parenting philosophy, “We want it to be easier for our kids than it was for us.” This philosophy in turn helped create and reinforce Millennials’ sense of entitlement, which is now a hotly debated topic.”

There has been a great deal of talk lately about “those Millennials”. They are often mentioned in derogatory terms and not often praised. Millennials are drawing so much attention these days because they are the largest generation presently in the work force. Their significant influence is being felt. Those of us that are a generation or two removed from them have started realizing that there is definitely something different about them.

Millennials often get a bad rap. No individual in a generation is completely defined by the characteristics of that generational profile. We are all unique. I’ve never been completely comfortable with lumping everyone born in a specific time-period with the same set of values. This would certainly be true concerning Millennials. They have some incredible qualities that we can all appreciate. They value education, question the status quo, and they think innovation long before other generations, etc. However, there are some strong tendencies that we see within each generation. Those tendencies are what we are addressing today.

Some people say that Millennials are people born from 1977 -1995. These are people that are 22 to 40 in age. Others say that they are people born in 1984 and after. The science behind these groupings isn’t exact but it does give us some generalizations that are helpful for understanding how people think, feel, and work.

Generation Z/Centennials/iGen are people that were born in 1996 or after. These are people that are 21 years old and younger. As you read this you may be thinking, “Wait! My kids aren’t even Millennials! What are they and what do I do with them?” I think the previous question is one that every parent, from every generation, has asked about our children at one time or another, “What are they and what do I do with them?” I’m going to attempt to answer some of that in this brief blog. To understand Generation Z, since that is the generation that is being parented presently, you must first have a working knowledge of Millennials.

My wife and I have six children. Of those six humans who also have the last name of Brust, we have two Millennials and four from Generation Z. After watching Simon Sinek’s video, we have seen how our Millennial children exhibit some of the traits that he mentioned. We’ve also noticed that our children from Generation Z take on some of those same characteristics but then also take them a step further in some ways. For example, one of the characteristics of a Generation Z child is that they don’t mind being even more unconventional than the previous generation. Our 20-year-old daughter values education as much as her older Millennial sisters but she is much more of a pragmatic idealist. This has translated, for her, the plan to move to a city that she loves, New York (ideal), and finish her college degree online (pragmatic). She reasons that she loves education, and actually desires to be a classroom teacher, but that “I might as well do it in a place that I love, with much more flexibility, and cheaper costs.” This makes perfect sense to her.

To her parents, who are Baby Boomers and are three generations removed from her, this initially, didn’t make much sense. However, being a bit pragmatic ourselves, and loving our daughter deeply, we began to look at it from her perspective. Now…we love that she has made this choice! It fits her perfectly and she loves school and life even more. Would we have made this choice at her age? No way! But we didn’t even know that it was an option. Bottom line: every generation has its uniqueness and, once again, every individual has their own uniqueness.

Here is what is most important. As a parent, it is important to love your children for who they are, not for who we want them to be. There are real issues that our kids face every day. Some of those are caused by our parenting. Some are caused by the generation that our kids belong to. Some are caused because our kids are humans and have free will. Some are caused by…

The most important value that we want our six children to have is this: To have a heart for God and the things of God. How do they get that? Sandy and I have to model it, talk it, live it, expect it, etc. It doesn’t just “happen”. Taking our kids to church is good but it doesn’t make them have a heart for God. Having devotions at home with our kids is good but it doesn’t make them have a heart for God. Removing the distractions and temptations that are not age appropriate for them is good but it doesn’t make them have a heart for God.

We describe it like this: We are going to do everything we can to have a heart for God ourselves. Sometimes we will fail. We will give every effort to admitting our faults and seeking the forgiveness of God and others.

So, “What are they and what do I do with them?” They are unique people created by God entrusted to us to guide them toward God. Let’s do our best to show God to them by consistently living out our faith in front of them. Even when our faith is small we live it. We don’t want to stay there but we live it. As our faith gets bigger, we live it. As we live it our kids see it. They will then have the example of living out live their faith as well.

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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).